A New Perspective

Me:
Good morning Holy Spirit!

Holy Spirit:

Good morning Jon!

Me:

I heard a teaching this week about getting our statements on the right side of our “buts”. The man reflected that our tendency is to talk about a promise or statement of truth in the scripture and then say “but my experience has been …” and then recount whatever we think is not living up to the promise. For example, one might say, “The scripture says ‘I Am the God who heals you’, but I feel awful.” He (rightly) pointed out that in that grammatical structure, that the thing that comes after the “but” negates the part that came before and that it is better to put the scriptural promise after the negating conjunction.

This morning in my reading, I came to Psalm 13, which seems a good example:

How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
² How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?

³ Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
⁴ And my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken.

⁵ But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
⁶ I will sing to the Lord,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.

Though the Psalmist starts out speaking with the voice of despair, at least in the end he voices the optimism of Truth.

Holy Spirit:
How much better to both start and end with the promise before one decides to spend two-thirds of one’s breath on the depressing things he doesn’t want; in fact, on the depression itself? When David was focused on the negative, he came to the belief that God had forgotten him. Is that the truth? Later, he came to know the truth:

Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count. Psalm 40:5

There was good reason that We included in the scripture statements like Matthew 18:18

Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

and Matthew 21:21

And Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen.

Many things can have you bound.  Even your attitude can bind you. Are you likely to get something done if you believe that you can’t? There are no hand-holds in the pit of depression by which to lift yourself up even to peer over the rim. You have to look for My Hand extended to you to lift you out. Here is a truth about that:

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. Hebrews 11:6

There is nothing more binding than believing lies about Me. That is why the serpent started with that tactic in the garden, calling into question the veracity of My Word.  Also, do not miss the import of the contrast of the temporal nature of “on earth” and “in heaven” as given in Matthew 18:18. The attitudes you espouse and the words with which you express them may be active and observable “on earth” –which is passing away – but be not deceived, the freedom or bondage you are choosing here and now has spiritual consequences which are not passing away and are affecting you and all of existence in ways that are spiritual and are unseen and is not constrained by time as the physical universe is.

Me:
Thank You Holy Spirit! I love You! Please help me ingrain Your Truth into my life and improve my attitude and the things I reinforce with what I say!

Holy Spirit:
You’re welcome! I love you! I Am helping you.